Judge OKs plea deal in Priest Lake killing

SANDPOINT — District Judge John Patrick Luster approved a plea agreement Monday to resolve the murder case against Tyrah Brea Brown.

Luster handed down suspended prison sentences and ordered Brown to remain jailed until she secures transitional housing through the Bonner County Homeless Task Force. The term of incarceration at the jail is capped at five months, according to Luster’s sentence.

In a plea agreement with the state, Brown pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of accessory to second-degree murder and an unmodified charge of grand theft by possession of stolen property.

Both charges result from the January 2007 shooting of 48-year-old Leslie Carlton Breaw at Priest Lake.

Breaw’s body was discovered within walking distance of his Coolin home several months after he was slain.

Tyrah Brown, and her husband, Keith, were tracked to Florida, where they were arrested and ultimately charged with first-degree murder and grand theft for possessing the proceeds from a $56,000 escrow check that was allegedly stolen from Breaw.

Keith Brown, also 48, is scheduled to be tried in September. There is no plea agreement pending in his case.

Tyrah Brown, 27, has maintained that she was not present during the deadly confrontation, an assertion that has been backed up by polygraph exams. However, she admitted she was not forthcoming when she later discovered Breaw was dead.

“I take full responsibility for not reporting what I knew to the police. I also take full responsibility for being in possession of money that did not belong to me,” Tyrah Brown told Luster.

Luster imposed a two- to five-year sentence on the after-the-fact accessory charge and four to 12 years on the felony theft charge. He suspended the concurrent prison terms and ordered Tyrah Brown held in county jail until April, at which time she could be placed in a task force facility which would serve as a halfway house.

She has been jailed for nearly two years.

Tyrah Brown’s siblings took the stand to say that Keith Brown manipulated and controlled their sister. Caleb Lamp, Tyrah’s brother, called Keith Brown a “monster,” and Mikala Harding-Lentz, Tyrah’s sister, said he would control her with a “constant supply of drugs.”

A presentence investigator, however, found it difficult to imagine how somebody in a relationship with Keith Brown and a history of incarceration could be so naive.

Tyrah Brown’s public defender, Serra Woods, disputed the accuracy of the investigator’s remark and emphasized that it was merely that person’s opinion.

“She truly did not know of the circumstances (of the shooting) when she went to Florida,” said Woods.

Although initially leery that Tyrah Brown’s involvement in the killing was after the fact, Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall said the state eventually warmed to the concept after reviewing polygraph results, mental health exams and the defendant’s interviews with authorities in Florida.

“We don’t deny any of the things that the defense witnesses stated about the coercion that was placed on her by her husband, Keith Brown. It appears from her psychological evaluation and from the history that we’ve seen that all of those things are indeed true. That’s why we believe this agreement is a just one,” Marshall said.

Luster noted Tyrah Brown’s troubled childhood, which included sexual abuse, but said it could not excuse her conduct in the incident.

“You certainly are not absolved of responsibility in this case, but yet your responsibility is limited and I think that’s been fairly and accurately set forth in terms of the plea agreement worked out in this case,” Luster said.